The car and me.

I see a car. Immediately many thoughts arise in my mind. Such thoughts create a sense of self. Suppose I see a stone it would not generate as many thoughts because it is of less use to me. Every time we open our eyes the eye is bombarded with millions of photons (light particles). A stone may send as many light particles as  a car would send. But the brain processes the light from the car to a great extent than it would process that from the stone.The reason is clear.

What creates the thoughts is the processing of the sensory data (here light falling on the eye).

So normally what we call as self is the collection of thoughts created by processing the sensory data.

In nutshell seeing something and thinking about it creates me : seeing the car creates me.

After that I see something else. I continue to engage in this activity creating an unbroken chain of thoughts. I therefore continually create myself. This makes me have a strong sense of self. A self which likes a particular car, who does not like another car. A self which has likes, dislikes.